There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in ~ Leonard Cohen

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always wanting more

A friend of mine got me thinking recently, after I said “I guess everyone is tempted sometimes to start over from scratch…” And my friend couldn’t believe that I would be tempted because my life appears close to perfect. Well, I’ve been thinking because I believe that it’s human nature, or at least, current social conditioning, that leads us to think what if?

Like, I’m pretty happy now, but there are things I’m unhappy about. Maybe, just maybe, I’ve made some wrong choices along the way. Maybe I should cut and run and go somewhere completely different and be someone completely new. I know I’ve entertained such daydreams, and I’m willing to bet you have too, gentle reader.

So, leaving aside true loves and family members. If you could emotionally disengage from your current life and make a new one, what would you do?

I was thinking I’d move to somewhere else, reinvent myself as an artist and make a living waiting tables in a cafe and painting big canvasses of strange monsters holding flowers.

I’d join a circus. I would start off as an acrobat but I’d learn trapeze and tissue work. I would fly! I’d wear a super spangly leotard and a little tutu and bleach my hair and then dye it candy floss pink.

Moving to somewhere exotic like Jamaica might be awesome. Or lose myself in a huge city like New York or Las Angeles or Paris. Just soak up all the culture and try and become a native.

Become a life coach. I think I’d be an awesome life coach. I just have to convince some people to pay me for it. I don’t even have to move for that one! Seriously, if you want to pay me, I can fully life coach you ;p

Go to drama school and try and make it big on the stage. I have always dreamed of singing Christine in the Phantom of the Opera. Well. I mean, I could do that now, but I couldn’t do it well.

Live it up like a super rich heiress and make out with anyone I like. Buy a tiny dog and call it something silly. Wear only high fashion clothing. Get photographed flashing knickers (or knicker-less) at 5am.

If I had to start a new life (say, on the run for a crime I didn’t commit) I would find 3 or 4 other people and form a team who went around helping the helpless. We would fire guns a lot but never actually shoot anyone.

What I’d really do? Something pretty ordinary like move into a flat in Wellington somewhere and try to get a job at Weta. If that failed I’d get some other job, save up some cash and go see what it’s like living in England or America or Scotland or Canada or some place like that.

I kind of feel like I’m probably leading the best fit realistically possible life for my disposition. Teaching is a good career for me because the large number of holidays appeals to my slack nature and apart the reports/marking side of things, it’s mostly about rambling about literature and trying to get younguns to actually enjoy and feel a degree of passion about reading, writing and analysing film.

Medical TV shows make me wish I was a doctor but I’m too squeamish and there is no way I’d have the stamina for the long hours they work.

However, if we can ignore realism than there are heaps of alternate lifestyles I’d love to get the chance to live, even if it was just a sample for a month or two.

I’d love to be a kick-ass action sportsy type who ran around doing extreme sports.

I’d like to be a criminal profiler who investigated serial killers etc. (It’s probably way too icky but the puzzle-solving detective element is appealing).

I’d love to be an archaelogist and travel the world uncovering ancient mysetries on digs. (Hmm, I guess I want to be Indiana Jones).

Also being a documentary film maker/presenter (non-snuff wildlife or history/cultural stuff like Terry Jones does) who likewise travels the world seeing amazing cool stuff.

Being rich enough that I could travel around in luxury and not have to be working. Buying beautiful but ruined historic buildings over all the world and restoring them to former glory.

Obscenely successful author or actor who is paid way too much money for the work they do. That’d be perfect.

Hmmm…I’ve sometimes thought I would be quite suited to being a town planner as I have many strong views about sub/urban planning and how it should not be done. But I doubt I’d have the energy to retrain.

I could see myself working for an international NGO or the UN living in Geneva or New York or both as a researcher/lawyer.

I also sometimes have visions of moving to Hawkes Bay and being a vegetable farmer.